


Lucky X in the City

by LilydaleXF



Category: Sex and the City (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, Episode: s06e10 Tithonus, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:10:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9995852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilydaleXF/pseuds/LilydaleXF
Summary: Samantha Jones meets Mulder in a bar.  Fox hunting ensues.  It's more serious than it sounds.I know the idea of these two shows together sounds insane, but I hope you’ll give this story a try.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Set during "Tithonus" (X-Files season 6), a few days before Mulder visits a hospitalized Scully at the end of the episode, and during the corresponding time of Sex and the City, which as best I can tell is between seasons 1 and 2.
> 
> Blueswirl and JET deserve buckets of gratitude for their spectacular betas. I'm thankful for them both, as ever.

Day One  
Lucky X Saloon, New York City  
11:21pm

"So, is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" Samantha purrs to the man sitting a couple stools over.

She's leaning against the bar waiting for her drink order. Her dress's only shoulder strap has fallen almost to her elbow, an effect she anticipated when she bought the outfit. Luckily, the fallen strap is on the side closest to the man.

The guy glances down at his tightly buttoned suit jacket before looking up at her with eyes that seem more sleepy than drunk. He has no discernable expression. "I could tell you but then I'd have to shoot you."

"Oooh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Her smile broadens and she leans closer to the very attractive man.

"I wouldn't know," the man blandly says as he pushes around two empty shot glasses.

"Now that I find surprising," Samantha says. "You look like a very...smart man."

It's a line, of course, but she actually means it for once. He's smartly dressed in an expensive tailored black suit, smartly groomed and muscled, and smartly composed with a careful, blank stare. This guy's eyes don't wander. He's looking directly at her and apparently thinking, but not like he's undressing her with his eyes. This is not an effect she ever anticipates, particularly not when in this hot, sparkly dress. Strap up or down.

"Smart is relative," he quietly huffs. Not the tone she expected but at least it got his mouth to quirk into a sort of smile before his eyes shift back to the bar top.

She's a little hesitant to keep pushing this guy into conversation, especially since he's obviously carrying a weapon, but luckily she's not the one who makes the call as to whether to continue talking or not.

"I'm certainly smarter than some," the man says without a drop of cockiness and without altering his non-expression.

He stops pushing around the shot glasses and starts tapping their rims with his index fingers, his thumbs up and the rest of his fingers curled closed so his hands make miniature guns. His actions certainly fit the gunslinger setting of this trendy faux Old West saloon, but she doubts he's thinking about that. He is definitely thinking, though. It is clearly not, however, about her even as he looks at her face.

How irritating.

"I don't doubt that, cowboy."

"I'm sure you don't." That could have sounded patronizing or like a snub, but somehow it doesn't. This guy's gaze is scarily knowing and penetrating.

Mmm, penetrating. Someone with this much intense focus definitely has potential.

"So, tell me," she almost whispers, "how hot's that heat you're packing?"

The bartender chooses that unfortunate moment to set her drinks down in front of her. The man looks away from Samantha, catches the bartender's attention, purposefully taps his glass collection with his gun fingers, and asks for another. He shows more enthusiasm during that one-sided conversation than during anything she said to him, damn his fine self.

She knows when to leave well enough alone, when to let things simmer, so she picks up two margarita mugs in each hand, smiles her friendly bad girl smile at the man, and says in a voice that sounds as if it should be accompanied by a wink, "Well you just let me know if you need to unload any of your heat." Then she turns and saunters away. As soon as she does, her playful smile fades.

Samantha brings the drinks to her friends and unceremoniously slides them on the barrel top they're sitting around. The barrels are supposed to be atmospheric and rustic but mostly they look like giant splinters waiting to injure women's crossed legs.

"That man," she says, flicking her eyes behind her without turning her head, "the one with the polished shoes and dark, Astroturf hair."

"Cute," says Carrie, to a round of nods from Miranda and Charlotte.

"He didn't even look at me! This strap," Samantha says as she plucks it mid-bicep with her opposite hand, "is practically a neon arrow guiding the eyes down!"

"A tailor could probably tighten that strap up for you," Charlotte offers.

"Or add actual neon to it," Miranda more helpfully suggests.

Samantha raises her eyebrows with interest at Miranda's obvious but warm sarcasm. She considers neon a potentially helpful accessory but not on this dress that's already quite loud enough thanks to a healthy dose of sequins. Her mind quickly returns to the traumatic matter at hand.

"I mean, what's wrong? Is it my hair? My eyes? Do I look pathetic and desperate?"

"Samantha, it's just one guy," Miranda says. "When has one guy ever been your downfall?"

Carrie chimes in, "'Men are like cabs. One passes by and you just hail yourself another one' is what I think you've actually advised in the past."

"There's something about that man," Samantha says.

"You just can't stand every man not wanting you. Maybe he's married," says Charlotte with that star-struck dreamy look in her eyes that Samantha only knows because she often sees it on Charlotte, ever the romantic optimist. "Loyal to his wife but lonely for her when she's away on business, so he comes to a busy place where he can feel like he belongs while anonymously drowning his sorrows."

"Oh, honey, you really have a lot to learn about men," says Samantha.

And Samantha has a lot more to learn about that man. There's something deeply passionate brooding there; he's practically oozing it. She knows it, and she sure as hell will try to make sure he knows it too.

By the time she turns back around after gabbing with the girls for a good spell about (dis)loyalty and The Manhattan Man, the smart, moody man is gone. She'll keep her eye out for that one. Yes she will.

x-x-x-x-x

Day Two  
Lucky X Saloon, New York City  
10:38pm

The Saloon's on the way to where Samantha's meeting Michael, a guy she rounded up late last night. She's running a bit early and who knows who she may chance upon inside, so why not. Samantha tells herself all this as she pushes through the Saloon's front shutter-style doors and smoothes down her hair.

Her eyes immediately gravitate to the row of faux-weathered wooden stools lining the bar. Two seats on either end of the bar are occupied, and she glides over to one like a moth drawn to fire.

There's heat in the bar again.

"Hello there," Samantha says as she settles onto the stool next to a familiar, expressionless man.

He turns to her and she expects to see surprise, maybe even relief or pleasure, but instead she sees nothing. This guy's face certainly offers a lot to look at, but while it's gorgeous on the surface she's not getting anything from him underneath. Maybe some amusement, but perhaps she only sees that because she wants to see something.

"Hello again," he says. At least he remembers her.

"I'm afraid we didn't get formally introduced yesterday. I'm Samantha," she says as she offers her hand.

That certainly registers with him, his lips curling into a quirky grin. "Mulder," he replies, formally shaking her hand as he almost imperceptibly tilts his head as if in disbelief.

The bartender swings by and they both ask for margaritas.

Orders placed and bartender gone, Samantha says, "Mulder. That's an interesting name."

"It's what everybody calls me," he says with a shrug.

"Oh, I like it. It's interesting," she says with a sexy crinkle of her nose.

"Samantha's interesting too."

"You think so?"

"You have no idea."

She raises her eyebrows, looks at him, unsure of his point but knowing that there is one. He does not elaborate despite her patient waiting and eyebrow quirking. This Mulder's a hard nut to crack.

Lucky for her she has a lot of experience with many kinds of nuts.

She suspects that Mulder needs direct pressure. He's not going to share much of anything if she doesn't ask, and even then she may find herself next to silence, likely due to a vacated seat.

Their margaritas arrive and Mulder takes a tiny sip. There's one empty shot glass in front of him, and she senses that he only ordered something different because she did first. He definitely has the same look he had last night, the forlorn one that only shots can chase away.

Samantha points down, waves her finger around the bar, "Drowning something here, Mulder?"

"Myself, mostly."

"Why?"

"Why does anybody?"

"Because some things are easier to cover than to confront."

"There you go," he says, taking another tiny sip from his cold mug.

"Things always have a way of resurfacing, though." Since when did she become a therapist to imbibing strangers?

"I hope so."

Suddenly he's lost her. Sitting alone at a bar on back to back nights, she's seen it. Drinking to avoid something, seen that too. Hoping that whatever you're chasing away with alcohol will come back, that's not so New York sane. Sounds like he's already drunk even though she strongly suspects he's not.

So, confused, she asks, "What?"

"I said I hope so."

"No," she clarifies, "I heard you, but it doesn't make sense. You want whatever it is to resurface?"

"Whoever. And yes, I do."

Mulder isn't exactly distancing himself from the nutty image she earlier concocted for him. Although maybe that doesn't matter too much since she suddenly feels the presence of someone. A woman someone. While that should maybe make her feel threatened or like she's hit a brick wall, it actually reenergizes her -- it starts to explain yesterday's strap neglect and why tonight Mulder hasn't even glanced at her bare legs practically crossed in his lap.

He's missing a lost girlfriend.

Samantha fancies herself an excellent cure for such things.

"Ah, sometimes it's better if they're gone," she says with a knowing smile that's cheered up many a man. "Believe me, nobody is worth drowning yourself over."

Mulder's been looking down at his drink but at that he raises his eyes to her. There's profound sadness there, enough to make her shift away from him a little bit. He doesn't even say anything, just looks at her for a moment with shiny, wide eyes and tight, thin lips. It's a quick assessing glance, not so much of annoyance and pity, which she's reluctant to admit she's seen enough to know, but of curiosity and depth.

Samantha's left still, smile erased, not knowing what to say. This does not happen very often.

"She's not gone," Mulder breaks into the silence. "Not yet." He pauses, no doubt thinking, as seems his default state. Looking up with that blank face of his he says, "She's a couple blocks down, at NYU Medical."

Suddenly Samantha wishes she'd worn a huge coat with a giant hood that she could pull up and over herself. Of course something like that should've occurred to her. 'Better if they're gone.' She couldn't feel more like an awful bitch.

"I'm sorry," she gently says. "I am."

"She's strong, my friend. I know she'll be awake soon, pull through."

"Mm-hmm," she reassures even though she imagines he doesn't need it.

Mulder doesn't offer any more information and Samantha doesn't ask for any. Not now, not tonight.

She looks at her watch. She should leave soon if she doesn't want to be horribly late for her 11:00 rendezvous with Michael.

"I'm sorry, Mulder, I know this will seem like I'm running, but I really do have to go. People to go, people to see," she says rocking her head side to side and speaking in her usual light-hearted tone that sounds so very fake right now.

He looks at her and softly smiles.

The walk from the bar to those stupid swinging doors seems unusually long, and she feels Mulder's eyes on her back the whole way there.

x-x-x-x-x

Day Three  
Lucky X Saloon, New York City  
12:54am

Samantha knows that she should probably have just gone home after dinner (with the girls) and dessert (in Michael's bed), but she's really in the mood for a nice cold margarita. Yes, a margarita. That's why she told the cab driver to take her here.

She's arriving so much later than on the previous two nights that she won't probably know anybody here. The bar will no doubt hold a bevy of unfamiliar faces. A row of prowling singles, each wondering if it's time to finally give up on the night or if that just right person will suddenly push through these gaudy shutter doors.

Actually, the Lucky X is sounding like a better and better idea.

Inside, the main room is fairly empty, but many people mill around the bar. She can't see but half the seats, so she cuts her way through the crowd. Of course, she can't get that margarita and properly scope out her prospects without immediately going up to the bar.

As she maneuvers around a woman with a huge and obviously extension-aided ponytail atop her head, she sees him about a third of the way down the bar. He's alone; the seats on either side of him are turned away and their occupants are talking to other people. He's again in a suit, though this time the jacket's draped on his lap, his shirt is white not blue, and the shirt's sleeves are rolled up his forearms. He's still favoring shots and has amassed quite a collection of empties.

Mulder's friend is obviously still not awake.

Samantha flushes knowing that she should probably feel much worse about that than she does.

She purposely sidles up next to Mulder, puts her hand on his shoulder, and says, "Long time no see, cowboy."

He turns to her. "Howdy there, Sam-an-tha."

Tonight his eyes droop not just from exhaustion but from alcohol, and they're definitely a little too red.

"Whoa partner, been busy tonight?"

"Partner? Hmpf!"

She doesn't particularly understand his reaction, but for some people, alcohol makes everything hilarious.

"You can't call me partner," he continues through gentle laughter. "You're not my partner. Even Scully's only sort of my partner now that we're on back-ground duty and Rit-ter's around."

Samantha reminds herself that alcohol makes some people a little rambling and nonsensical.

"How about I buy you a drink, Mulder?" She can probably order a Coke and get him to drink the same thing. If that's how it worked last night sober, tonight should more than easily follow suit.

She's hardly one to critique anyone's behavior, especially in a bar at 1am, but this guy's clearly on some kind of downward spiral that can't end anywhere good. It occurs to her that maybe everything's already ended the worst way possible. But maybe he's still so drained from waiting for a change in his friend's condition that he's spending the late night trying to forget why he's even here.

"Yes, a drink," he says as his laughter trickles away. "Yes, a shot for the partner."

Now his red eyes look like they might cry. She wasn't sure he was capable of such naked emotion, but she knows that alcohol is good for making that happen too.

He continues, "A shot for the partner with the partner who's been shot."

Mulder tightly smiles, and it looks like it hurts.

"Two Cokes," she calls to the bartender. Maybe after the drinks arrive she'll leave. Mulder's clearly in an inebriated funk, and abruptly she's not sure why she came to the Saloon in the first place.

"Coke, Samantha? That's not a shot!" He purses his eyebrows together and seems to come to a hard fought realization. "But you're not really Samantha, so I guess it's okay for you to lie."

It's a good thing she didn't meet Mulder for the first time like this because his pretty face wouldn't have been enough for even her to stick around him for any reportable period of time. Now she's somehow involved.

Oh, that's rich. The day she's involved with a man. Although, she is used to being so-called involved with guys who don't always know her name.

"No, Mulder, I'm quite sure I'm Samantha. There's nobody else who's me, I guarantee you that."

"Not my Samantha," Mulder mumbles, staring over the bar. "My Samantha got taken when we were just kids, and now she's grown up and cloned and bleeding green blood and she has dark hair like mine and Dad's but your hair is light and isn't anything like my Samantha's. Or maybe that's part of the cover-up conspiracy and you are her." He finally looks up at Samantha. "Have you ever been abducted by aliens?"

Samantha initially thought that Mulder's Samantha was his hospitalized friend, but now she's half wondering if there even is a hospitalized friend. And if there is if Mulder should be locked down in a bed beside her.

"No," she simply says.

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Aliens don't exist, Mulder," she says in as care-giving a tone she can muster, "even though the streets of New York may sometimes make you think otherwise."

"Ha! You sound just like Scully!"

Samantha noncommittally murmurs assent.

"Except Scully can't talk at all right now. I hate Ritter."

The bartender sets their drinks on the bar in front of them. Mulder grabs a mug and takes a big swig. Samantha follows suit, not so much out of thirst or solidarity but because it gives her an excuse not to speak.

Setting the mug back down, Mulder speaks gravely to Samantha, "Taking a shot to the stomach is very painful, you know. Painkillers make you sleep a lot. Scully's been asleep a lot." He frowns.

"Maybe she needs you anyway, Mulder."

"Right, the day Scully really needs me."

"Maybe you should go to her," she says hoping it doesn't sound like she's trying to get rid of Mulder. She is, though, which disturbs her in a way she can't quite discern. There's something there about her getting rid of him because if she can't have him nobody can, but there's also something there about how she's already had more from him than she usually gets out of men at bars and about how somebody already has him. It's a messy mix past the witching hour.

She continues speaking, "Or go home, wherever. Rest."

"Mmm...sleep."

"You're not helping anybody except the bartender by holing up at the Lucky X," Samantha says. 'Least of all me,' she thinks in what she knows is an inappropriate way, but at least it's helping her prompt Mulder to leave. Whoever his Scully is, and assuming she does actually exist, he should probably be with her.

"Lucky X...Lucky X...I thought that with a name like that this place would've been more lucky for us," he mumbles to himself.

He has the wherewithal to pull out some money before he stands up and starts to walk away. He only moves a few feet before he stops, looks over his shoulder at her with dark, melancholic eyes, and says, "You'd be a good Samantha."

Mulder's plainly sincere and appears more boyish than she's ever seen him. This moment is important.

Samantha tilts her head and smiles. "Thank you."

He smiles back, the gesture tempered only by the sadness still set deep in his eyes. He turns around, and continues to leave.

She watches him push through the crowd and the shutter doors, which he punches open with more vigor than necessary. Out the fogged window she can make out his form, arm up to hail a cab. She hopes he finds home okay and that his Samantha or Scully is there.

x-x-x-x-x

Day Four  
Lucky X Saloon, New York City  
10:13pm

"After three nights of Michael, I'm definitely ready for something that won't leave me hanging. So to speak," Samantha tells Carrie as they walk into the Saloon.

It's a little too early for the bar to be packed with wannabe urban cowboys, so Samantha has a clear view of the bar. Mulder's in the same seat he was in last night, but this time he's not alone.

Not alone, that is, if you count someone on the other end of a cell phone as company, which she does. A cell phone is the token friend you go out with to start a night you want to end with someone else. God bless technology.

She's pretty sure, however, that Mulder isn't out on that kind of bar crawl.

"Sitting at the bar okay?" Samantha asks as she leads them there pre-answer.

"The closer I am to getting a Cosmo, the better," Carrie says.

Samantha sits a half dozen stools away from Mulder. Carrie takes the seat next to her and one seat closer to him. Carrie may be little, but she's acting as a fairly effective buffer. She shields Samantha from Mulder's view while providing her occasional sneaking glances and a clear line of sight if Samantha inconspicuously leans just a tad to the right.

She feels like she's on stakeout. It's incredibly exciting, and she ridiculously hopes that Mulder's still packing heat tonight because that would be so apropos.

Carrie's yapping on about something to do with Cosmos, The Hamptons, Big, and Prada. Maybe it's multiple somethings. She doesn't really know. Carrie's a very good talker. Samantha's a good listener - she knows how to be quiet and offer pithy if not soothing advice at the end of it all whether the advice is directly on topic or not.

Unfortunately, it's Carrie who will no doubt want those words of hers while it's Mulder that she's listening to.

Almost as soon as she spotted Mulder at the bar he started talking on his cell phone, but she has an approximate idea what he's talking about even catching the conversation midstream.

"How sure about that are you, Ritter?" Mulder clips into the phone. A short pause later he continues in that same sharp tone. "Uh-huh. I'm sure you do feel that way." A slightly longer pause. "I'm not sure that I'm the one who needs to hear your apologies. Let's hope you can make the right ones soon. Not that Scully will give them any more weight than they're worth."

Samantha's not sure what Mulder's talking about, but she does know that she's glad he never spoke to her in that icy, condescending tone.

"What?!" Mulder almost yells into the phone as he stands up, fumbling for his wallet. "Why didn't you immediately say she's awake? I'm on my way." He clicks off the phone, sparing Ritter no goodbye, and mutters something to himself just quietly and angrily enough that she's sure it's a curse of some sort.

As he turns to leave his eyes catch Samantha's. She's pleased to note they don't reflect as much irritation as they did just a few moments before.

"Good luck," she says to him, thoroughly interrupting Carrie, who stops talking mid-sentence.

"Thanks," he says with a very slight grin that nevertheless seems to transform his face. "Though it's not me who probably needs it most right now," he says, gesturing to the door.

"Right," she says smiling. "She's awake." There's a couple seconds of silence between them. Mulder seems a little dazed, stuck in his tracks. It's oddly disconcerting because she knows she's not the one stunning him.

"What are you waiting for? Go," she gently admonishes with a devastating smile.

"Right. Thanks. Goodnight, Samantha."

His mouth curves into a little more of a grin before he turns and darts away. She watches the shutters wave behind him.

Samantha shifts her gaze back to Carrie, who's staring at her with one eyebrow raised high in that ultra-questioning way she has.

"What?" Samantha snipes, knowing full well What.

Eyebrow still on full tilt, Carrie says, "We came here for him, didn't we? And by we I mean you." Her finger points accusingly at Samantha.

"No," Samantha says with absolute authority and indignation. It's true, she didn't come here for him, at least not in the way Carrie thinks she came for him. Even though Michael really has become tiresome after three consecutive nights.

"You know," Carrie says with a finally relaxed brow and finger, "I believe you." Samantha feels vindicated until Carrie continues with, "Because you clearly already knew he was otherwise occupied."

"I did not."

"You knew something," Carrie continues to challenge.

"No I didn't," Samantha continues to deny for no real reason other than trying to maintain her air of indifference to specific men. It's not like she knows anything for sure about Mulder except that he adores someone named Samantha and someone named Scully. But adoring someone else doesn't necessarily make a man off limits in Samantha's book of rules, and both she and Carrie know that.

"You didn't know anything like how he didn't know anything. Samantha." Carrie emphasizes her name, remindful of the way Mulder said it.

Damn.

"Yes, like that," Samantha musters.

Carrie hauls out the eyebrow again.

Damn.

"I may have run into him again since that night here with you."

More eyebrow.

"And I may have briefly spoken with him. But that's all."

"But that's all," Carrie mimics as if she doesn't believe her.

"Not every conquest is a sexual conquest, or needs to be."

"Whoa," Carrie says, throwing her hands up like she would at a church revival. "Do my ears deceive me?"

"Sometimes," Samantha continues speaking in a solid and authoritative tone, "it is just about getting to know a man, learning a little about his life. Sex isn't the be-all-end-all all the time."

Carrie boggles. "I can't believe you just said that. You!"

Considering the potential, similar shock on the masses, Samantha says, "This doesn't leave the Saloon."

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Carrie promises as she marks an X on her chest with her finger. Samantha hopes that X is a lucky one. There's very little telling what Carrie will blurt into conversations, much less what will work its way into her newspaper column.

"It's just that I have a reputation to protect."

Carrie shakes her head back and forth as she says, "Some women spend their lives trying to look and act pure while some, well, some do not." She briefly pauses and stares into space before resuming. "Is being loose the strength of modern women?"

"It certainly is for some," Samantha says, beaming.

Carrie nods and smiles, taking Samantha's cue that a prime example of a loose yet strong woman is in her very midst.

It's funny that not just Samantha but Carrie learned a little something about Samantha that they didn't realize was under her hyper-sexualized surface.

The Lucky X turned out to be quite lucky after all. As long as nobody stops seeing that hyper-sexualized surface.

"So, Carrie, know any tailors who work well with neon?"

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted online in 2004 but is new to AO3 in 2017.


End file.
